Is the M2 really faster than the M1?

[ADGrant]

Of course its worth buying over the M1 Air. This logic is absolutely idiotic. This is like saying I need a car to get me to the store, but the BMW is not worth buying over the Ferrari because it can only do 160 and the other can top 200. You're still only going to go 60. MBA users don't care about read/write speeds that already far exceeded their needs.

A very poor analogy. BMW and Ferrari are completely different auto brands selling very different cars. The base M1 and M2 MBAs are just different versions of the same think. One has slightly better single core and GPU performance, the other much better SSD performance. The two advantages largely cancel each other out and I doubt most MBA users could tell the difference.

That's a perfect example of faux rage. No MacBook Air user is taking advantage of M2 read/write speeds let alone M1.

They probably are if they only have 8gb of RAM.

 

[nordique]

Yes it’s faster but it’s a small real world amount, like A14 to 15 faster. Same node with higher transistor count and a higher clock speed hence it has more heat production which unless its actively cooled

Most of the M1 to M2 advancements are in the GPU this generation

The big jumps are with node changes, especially these days where the relative generation to generation gap is small

 

[nordique]

edited / deleted. Sorry for any confusion

 

[darngooddesign]

sooo... there hasn't been any "gotcha's" with the m2? No "rage" about the M1 read/write speed being faster on the base airs? Maybe not so weird after all...😉

Plenty of rage from people who spend their time running benchmarks or exporting lots of large files to a tiny internal drive. You know, realistic every day stuff. 🤣

But yes, the M2 is faster. How much depends on what you are doing.

 

[ADGrant]

Plenty of rage from people who spend their time running benchmarks or exporting lots of large files to a tiny internal drive. You know, realistic every day stuff. 🤣

But yes, the M2 is faster. How much depends on what you are doing.

Don't really see the point in rage. Apple sells 4 MacBooks of a fairly similar size. Two are fanless, two are not. Pick the one which works for you.

 

[Misheemee]

That's a perfect example of faux rage. No MacBook Air user is taking advantage of M2 read/write speeds let alone M1.

Of course they are! Most people who buy base models (especially with 256GB Ram) look to use either a cloud based HDD or an external HDD to write to for backups for storing information. The read/write speeds are most pertinent. The slower HDD (found in the M2 Air) also has everything to do with memory swapping, and how the system handles/reads/writes to it.

 

[Odessa]

‘A Family of Products’

Speaking of Evans Hankey, she and other members of Apple's design team chatted with GQ about the new MacBook Air. There's not a ton of new information in the piece but this jumped out at me: It’s a workload that she compares to “drinking from the firehouse” but even accounting for that vast...

512pixels.net

Speaking of Evans Hankey, she and other members of Apple’s design team chatted with GQ about the new MacBook Air. There’s not a ton of new information in the piece but this jumped out at me:

It’s a workload that she compares to “drinking from the firehouse” but even accounting for that vast portfolio of responsibilities, the Air’s redesign has been a unique challenge. “It was the first time we ever set out to do a family of products together,” she says. “We didn’t design the Air in isolation, but we designed it in tandem with the MacBook Pro.”

So here is how I understand this quote: They intentionally crippled the M2 macbook air performance, so you get a cohesive price/performance ratio within the catalogue of apple macbooks.

I believe one of the reason they made the M1 air as good as they could is that transition to their own silicon was a big risk involving convincing developpers it was worth it to invest into the new architecture.
Now that they know everyone loves the apple sillicon based macbooks, they are more confident to use such techniques to maximaze profit.

Sure you could upgrade the ssd and ram to get the real m2 performance out of the air, but even the based model 14" pro will have higher performance.

Also, about the extensive 'real usage' tests by artisright I posted earlier, one thing that stand out is that the mac mini M1 with 16gb of ram is higly competent. it is even better than the m2 pro with 16gb of ram in some tests. It seems to be the best value for someone that is looking for the macOS experience at the best price/performance ratio.

 

[icymountain]

Yes, the base model M2s have about half the SSD performance. Not worth buying over the M1 MBA.

OTOH If you add RAM and SSD capacity to the M2 MacBook you are spending almost as much as you would for the base 14" MBP, a much better (though heavier) laptop.

I mostly agree. How far apart the two machines are in real life is still to be decided (reviews so far are not very deep, we should wait a bit more to see better ones), but I already see myself getting either of these. Weight is important to me but so is performance. As I have some time, I will just wait and see for now...

 

[senttoschool]

It could also be due to other things like SSD speed since the comparison is over base models.
It would be nice to see comparisons between models that are more likely to be chosen by people who need performance, like 16/512.

SSD speeds generally rarely affect CPU/GPU performance.

 

[leman]

‘A Family of Products’

Speaking of Evans Hankey, she and other members of Apple's design team chatted with GQ about the new MacBook Air. There's not a ton of new information in the piece but this jumped out at me: It’s a workload that she compares to “drinking from the firehouse” but even accounting for that vast...

512pixels.net

So here is how I understand this quote: They intentionally crippled the M2 macbook air performance, so you get a cohesive price/performance ratio within the catalogue of apple macbooks.

I believe one of the reason they made the M1 air as good as they could is that transition to their own silicon was a big risk involving convincing developpers it was worth it to invest into the new architecture.
Now that they know everyone loves the apple sillicon based macbooks, they are more confident to use such techniques to maximaze profit.

Why do people have to construct conspiracy theories out of the blue like this? The did not "make M1 air as good as they could", they literally took the old Intel chassis and put the M1 chip into it. And they didn't "cripple M2 MacBook Air performance" — it's a passively cooled ultraportable for everyday home/business user and it offers excellent value for that kind of use. It's not any more crippled than the M1 Air ever was, or in fact, any Intel MBA before it. It's not designed to be a sustained performance monster, but even then it will still outperform pretty much every actively cooled laptop in the same product space.

And sure, one would have expected more improvements from M2, it didn't happen, COVID and supply chain shortages affect everyone. Apple will either recover and improve their performance going forward or they won't. But please, let's not interpret every product delay or economical decision as a some sort of deliberate evil plan.

Sure you could upgrade the ssd and ram to get the real m2 performance out of the air, but even the based model 14" pro will have higher performance.

The base 14" also has a much better display, connectivity and a chassis designed for sustained work. It's also $300 more expensive than the Air with same RAM/SSD and considerably more bulky. Different tool for different type of users. If you consider the lack of sustained potential of M2 Air to be a problem and are looking at the 14" Pro instead, well, the Air was never meant for you.

 

[IsaacM]

Minimal difference in speed. In real world usage it might feel even slower if you are using the base model with slower SSD.

Apple always does the least in terms of internals when they present a new design. They know people will buy it for the looks.

 

[darngooddesign]

Minimal difference in speed. In real world usage it might feel even slower if you are using the base model with slower SSD.

Apple always does the least in terms of internals when they present a new design. They know people will buy it for the looks.

You're using 'always' incorrectly.

The M1 computers used the old design and are a big improvement.

The 14/16 MBPs use a new design and are a big improvement.

The 24" iMac use a new design and is big improvement.

The Mac Studio use a new design and is a big improvement.

The M2 MBP uses the old design and offers a decent but not big improvement in speed.**

The M2 Air uses a new design and offers a decent but not big improvement in speed.**

** Most reviews give it a 15-30% speed improvement over M1 depending on what you are doing; video tasks are especially accelerated. If what you are doing on a laptop relies on raw drive speeds, why are you considering a tiny SSD.

 

[Macative]

They probably are if they only have 8gb of RAM.

Not when its still fast enough, which it is. No one seems to talk about the actual SSD speeds themselves because that would end the argument immediately. They just keep talking about slower than M1 as if that actually matters.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Apple always does the least in terms of internals when they present a new design. They know people will buy it for the looks.

Definitely seems to be the case .... lots of gushing just about just the Midnight color --- with all other concerns mostly pushed away.

 

[darngooddesign]

Definitely seems to be the case .... lots of gushing just about just the Midnight color --- with all other concerns mostly pushed away.

Meh...people gushed over Space Grey when apple first released it. People gushed over the black MacBooks when that color was first introduced. Midnight is the new Space Grey.